In a pleasing moment of candor, British journalist Emily Maitlis called out Donald Trump’s “bats--t” rhetoric live on air. The remark earned her admonishment from her colleague, not because she was wrong, necessarily, but because of her swearing.
During Channel 4’s election coverage, Maitlis—who conducted Prince Andrew’s disastrous Newsnight interview—said that when “Trump talked about the eating of cats and dogs, half of America was just thinking, ‘This is bats--t. I can’t believe what he’s saying. This is gonna be the end of him.’”
Maitlis was referring to the far right’s conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants in Ohio stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets, which had absolutely no truth to it but which Trump and his lieutenants spent months repeating anyway.
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As she made her point, her co-host, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, cut her off and told her to “stop swearing” because it set a double standard for their guests. “I have to tell them off for swearing, and then you do it,” he continued.
For what it’s worth, Guru-Murthy was laughing as he said it, and reports that Maitlis was ordered off air over the remark, or that she quit the broadcast in a huff, are false. As Deadline reports, she left to record her podcast, The News Agents, and then came back to resume election coverage.
According to Guru-Murthy, the person who was “fired” from the panel was former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whom Maitlis grilled earlier in the evening over his “Trump-like behavior.”
Rather than answering her questions, Johnson largely deflected and talked about his new memoir, Unleashed, instead.
When Johnson eventually disappeared from the rotation, Guru-Murthy told viewers the ex-PM had been axed for “banging on about his book,” though the host may have been joking. Other highlights from Channel 4 studio included Stormy Daniels and former Trump fixer Michael Cohen meeting each other in person for the first time.
Anyway, Maitlis apparently did not earn herself a big network reprimand. Guru-Murthy merely told viewers, “I’ll tell Emily off later because I know she started the swearing. It may be the middle of the night in Britain, but they’re still a little bit sensitive about that stuff.”
Whether or not half of Americans consider Trump’s claims to have been “bats--t” is less clear. Trump had beaten Kamala Harris with 277 electoral votes to her 224 when the Associated Press called the race early Wednesday. He was leading the popular vote, too, at 71 million votes to Harris’ 66 million. Five states had yet to be called, but four of those were leaning his way, too.
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